All important provisions of UNCLOS for freedom of navigation rights provided by customary international law

With regard to freedom of movement: President Reagan’s 1983 Ocean Policy Statement stated that UNCLOS “contains provisions with respect to traditional uses of the oceans which generally confirm existing maritime law and practice . . ..”¹⁶ The International Court of Justice reached a similar conclusion in the 1984 Gulf of Maine case, albeit in the context of the continental shelf and EEZ articles, indicating that the Convention’s provisions were reflective of customary international law.¹⁷ In short, today, all of the important provisions of UNCLOS dealing with freedom of movement, such as the rights of innocent passage, transit passage, archipelagic sea lanes passage, and high seas freedoms seaward of the territorial sea, are considered by virtually all nations as a reflection of customary international law that is binding on all nations. Both our commercial shipping and military forces have exercised and enjoyed these rights for the past 25 years, during which time the United States has not been a party to UNCLOS. Clearly, the United States does not have to become a party to the Convention to exercise its navigational rights and freedoms worldwide. Iran is the only country that continues to maintain that the right of transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz applies only to State Parties to the Convention. What we need more than membership in another treaty is a coherent national policy that supports freedom of navigation and a strong Navy that can challenge excessive coastal state claims that purport to curtail our freedom of movement and restrict our access to the world’s oceans.